Yahoo Provides API To Analytics Firms

Well I almost got excited.

Yahoo! has decided to let advertisers SEND them information about their campaigns through an API...provided your a WebTrends, WebSideStory, Coremetrics or Omniture customer.

Well, that's nice but what advertisers need is information flowing FROM the PPC networks. So basically the information on what's begin down protect your online advertising investment is still non-existent.

Of interesting note is the comment that Bryan Eisenberg, Chairman of the Web Analytics Association said in a statement:

It's a common misperception that search engines have all of the information necessary to identify all unwanted clicks. The fact is, advertisers possess information in their web analytics data that is proprietary to their business and can help engines detect questionable traffic

What rock did Bryan crawl out from under? That is the opposite of what the PPC networks are saying. I have received emails and form letters from both Yahoo! and Google going into to detail of how exhaustive their processes are for finding click fraud and how many PhDs with large craniums they have on staff. Either Bryan is blowing smoke or the PPC networks are, well its probably both.